Technical help needed - unclear if upstream or downstream of me

[smirge1]

Brilliant.

[smirge1]

Thanks, yeah understood on the Openreach parameters. Have read and seen this take on it in quite a few places. 

Guess in the adsl forum there is little appetite to scrutinise the router logs to rule out any other issues? I originally came here to check it wasn’t anything downstream of me that could be causing it. That seems quite common from reading the fibre sub-forum 😞

[Edinburgh-wg]

There would be no impact on the quality of your line. 

The only impact is that with FTTP, there's an ONT, which is a modem. With ADSL/VDSL, the role of the modem is your access point and so by switching it off, you won't probably connect to the internet (because your modem will be switched off). However, it's difficult to tell, as different manufacturers implement different solutions. 

I understand that your cabling has been checked etc. but my recommendation of ADSLNation filter comes from the years of experience of being on a noisy line (assuming that this is what has happened in your case). It's a very superior filter and who knows, it may offer that additional stability that you need. You can always send it back. 

I'll point out once more that even though the line may have problems, if it's deemed by Openreach to be within the acceptable parameters (this is the phrase they use; never the line is fine etc., but that it's within the acceptable parameters), then there is nothing you can do about it. They'll simply tell you (and at BT too) that a couple of disconnections (can't remember what exactly is the norm now) is fine. 

There's also another solution: if you switch providers to [it's similar in name to that that offers road rescue], they have a policy where there's a problem, even long standing, they will fix your line as part of the contract. 

[smirge1]

Thank you for the kind words and commiserations. As someone who's happily been on BT Fibre for a great many years and recently been forced back to ADSL after moving, this has come as a gut punch. I didn't think these sort of issues happened anymore. I am like a dog with a bone with this stuff, but it's really taking it out of me. Not being able to relax on a weekend evening because your Smart TV can no longer stream is horrible. 

It's hard to escape the suspicion there is a known issue which Openreach are trying to avoid. What's especially frustrating is every single time they come, BT assume the fault is resolved and close it, which means I have to ring them up and reopen it. It's >20 hours on the phone to them so far trying to resolve this. 

We've had a new socket, new internal line, new router, cabling checks up to the entrance to the building and now it seems the route to the cab and exchange are the last, messy points of failure to check. The bandwidth is actually very good for copper, when it works, maxing out about 20mbps. 

I am changing FTTP mode to 'off' first to see if this fixes things but I would also very much welcome some clarity over the impact / risk of this being set to 'on' for ADSL connections. Or to put it another way, if this is just a punt then I'd rather not give Openreach the chance to give up on the situation. 

Edit - I think I've now made sense of the fact that FTTP mode would *only* be a problem if I was using port 4. So, back to the drawing board. 

[Edinburgh-wg]

> Sorry, what I meant was, is the FTTP being on potentially causing the slow speeds / drop-outs and is it possible to

> obtain any detail as to why that may be happening? Thank you. 

This is not possible, as the two are two different technologies. ADSL uses copper, whereas FTTP uses laser/light. (If that's what you mean by fibre, as fibre is the term loosely used to refer to FTTC and FTTP; FTTC, however, uses copper, and if there's an issue on the line, it'll affect the service, too.)

I think in your case because there is FTTP, no manager in your local exchange will be willing to fix DSL which is essentially heading to be retired. It's just not cost effective. It's like getting a very expensive part to fix a 20 or 30 year old fridge.  

Your bet is to wait for them to increase capacity at the cabinet/pole, but when this will happen is anyone's guess. 

[Edinburgh-wg]

Sorry to hear that. We had a similar situation with Openreach engineers at the start of the pandemic. In the end, we had 25+ Openreach visits (always blaming our WiFi and changing sockets/filters for an nth time). We filed two complaints with CEO of Openreach (it's not that easy), after a deadlock letter with Plusnet and simply running out of options. 

It might be that there's some kind of high resistant fault somewhere and that fixing it will be too expensive (replacing lots of cable, digging etc.) I don't think you'll ever know because Openreach are like a sect. So, they will test the line and as long as it's within parameters (it doesn't mean all fine), then they just leave it. With FTTP coming, I sometimes think they've given up altogether on ADSL and VDSL. 

Your options: 

If things don't improve, 

- try with ADSLNation filter connected to the back of the master socket (available still on the Tandy Online shop)

- get a different router (for example Zyxel 8924 - exactly this model because it has an internal filter in it) and test the line

- be persistent until you get to the stage where you'll be so scunnert that it'll force you to raise a CEO complaint (then, you need to raise the complaint about a person, rather than the service, as they'll reject it) 

There's also another couple of alternatives (if things don't improve within a month or so):

- get starlink and use satellite internet - this will save you a lot of hassle long term

- get a mobile broadband connection and rely on it, which is what we wish we had done, rather than flight with Openreach for 2 years (yes!), as they're unaccountable essentially 

Of course, your situation is different from ours, where we had a number of multiple issues (all on Openreach's network) that took the Chief Engineers Office and multiple visits to rectify (and still not fully, because there was still SHINE on the line)

How in this country it's possible to get to such a situation where there's one company (Openreach, not BT, as both are two separate companies now) that can get away with so much is beyond my belief. I truly find it  extraordinary. 

Good luck!

[smirge1]

Sorry, what I meant was, is the FTTP being on potentially causing the slow speeds / drop-outs and is it possible to obtain any detail as to why that may be happening? Thank you. 

[imjolly]

I don't see the FTTP switch is causing problems if you are not using the ethernet ports

[smirge1]

Okay, I will try that. Thank you.

Is there any more detail on why FTTP mode could be causing this, so I can feed this back to Openreach when they visit again today? 

[imjolly]

if on ADSL then turn off FTTP but only cause problem if you try and use ethernet port 4 which doubles as LAN/WAN